Eric Andre selling NFTs is sad, confusing, and predictable all at once
The comedian may understand the absurdity and the environmental issues around NFTs, but he doesn't seem to care.
In a sad and yet somehow perfectly plausible twist of fate, Eric Andre has become an adman for NFTs. The comedian made a post on Instagram shilling NFTs for Frank’s Red Hot Sauce with a caption that should make anyone rub their eyes in existential anguish: “Have you ever eaten an NFT? Me either. I just tried. And failed. But you? You can succeed. ‘Cause @franksredhot is creating the first-ever edible NFT that you can get by eating wings and scanning the bones at bonecoin.com Eat wings, not phones.”
No, we do not care to find out the specific details behind how scanning a chicken wing bone gets you an edible NFT. You can put interactive lipstick on a pig, but it’s still going to be a scam that is the final boss of our capitalist wasteland.
Outside of headache-inducing incredulity, we’re not sure how to feel about all this. Most of his fans, if the comments on his post are any indication, are almost universally disappointed. But on one hand, if there’s anyone to push the already stupid concept of NFTs into the bizarre nexus of chicken wings, hot sauce, and the word “edible,” it would be Eric Andre, the patron saint of the absurd. Andre’s comedy for the last decade has, after all, been built on the surreal and ludicrous, so maybe screwing around in the meaningless digital space of NFTs is an organic endpoint for him.
Then again, NFTs, for the most part (unless you are actually a small artist), fall squarely in the camp of a scam, and anytime a celebrity or person of influence is not only owning them but selling and advertising them, they’re essentially opting into the exploitative pyramid scheme. And it’s hard to completely enjoy this as one big Eric Andre-esque bit that neatly encapsulates how ridiculous this new boom is. Because Andre has in fact already sold NFTs before, and partially acknowledged its negative impact in a weird post from last summer:
It would have been at least ambivalent if he just sold them as some weird art thing, but to actually acknowledge the potential criticism and environmental impact, then mock everyone for it, leaves little room for defense. Not to mention the fact that, as others have pointed out, his defense is just kind of an edgy, more cringey form of this:
At the end of the day, it makes some sense that Andre has gone to the dark side, but we’re not happy about it.
